Book 6: Chapter 24
“There’s no need to rush,” One of the figures huddled in a shadowed spot between tents whispered to their fellows. “Why are we being pushed to move this quickly?”
“It isn’t like there’s actually a threat to deal with,” Another agreed, “We’re going to stomp on some backwater little ‘king’ who thinks they’re big enough to demand terms from the Order after some little scuffle. Honestly, who do they think we are? A two-bit band of mercenaries that have killed a random vampyr or two? We’re the Shatterplate Order!”
“No, no,” A third jumped in with a falsely sweet tone, “We aren’t going to stomp on anything, we’re just showing the concerned king who had some little vampyr problem they couldn’t deal with on their own how powerful the Order actually is. There won’t be any violence just a show of why they should be grateful for the Order’s assistance instead of being pissy about things not going how their ruler wanted.”
The fourth figure standing in the shaded, out of the way area of one the Shatterplate Order’s many camps as they marched toward Avalon said nothing. The other three didn’t notice the silence, or if they did they didn’t care.
“You’re right though,” The third speaker continued, “Who do they think the Order is? Because they have to be completely out of the loop to think that we’d actually move the entire organization including our training centers into some little hodunk one city ‘kingdom’. The farther east you go the worse everything seems to get. They probably don’t even get that the Order is back by nations hundreds of times larger than theirs.”
“Do you know what actually happened? There’ve been all kinds of rumors floating around, but no one has given me a straight answer. I even bugged my team leader, and he just told me to ‘shut up and keep moving’! Can you believe that.”
“It’s been the same for me! Everyone’s been on edge this entire time, I wonder if they think we’re actually going to get in a fight when we get there?”
One of the three leaned in closer and whispered excitedly, “Well I heard it involves the Commander’s daughter.”
The other two scooted closer to hear the juicy gossip. “Really?”